from A Life of One’s Own, by Joanna Field.
One day I stopped in front of a Cezanne still-life — green apples, a white plate and a cloth. Being tired, restless, and distracted by the stream of bored Sunday afternoon sightseers drifting through the galleries, I simply sat and looked, too inert to remember whether I ought to like it or not. Slowly I became aware that something was pulling me out of my vacant stare and the colors were coming alive, gripping my gaze till I was soaking myself in their vitality. Gradually a great delight filled me. It had all happened by just sitting still and waiting. If just looking could be so satisfying, why was I always striving to have things or to get things done? Certainly I had never suspected that the key to my private reality might lie in so apparently simple a skill as the ability to let the senses roam unfettered by purposes. I began to wonder whether eyes and ears might not have a wisdom of their own.